Blackout

by Chris Ryan

  He pulled the Mustang out of the parking lot and started heading due north, away from the town.There was a sheriff's office by the side of the road, and as they went past it Josh instinctively felt himself gunning the accelerator. Take it easy, he warned himself. This is a big country, men get lost for years. So long as you stay calm you can buy yourself the day or two you need to find Luke.

  His head had been spinning ever since his arrest. That was the last thing he'd expected. For the first few hours he'd been driven just by the adrenalin of his escape,-then by finding Kate again. But he still didn't know what he could have done to make the Army turn on him so viciously.

  My memory, he reflected grimly. It's still shot full of holes. Something happened between me and Luke. Something that is still unfinished. Something that the Army didn't like.

  I just don't know what it is.

  I have to find him. I have to find out what happened in those few hours and minutes before I was shot.

  He pulled the car into a lay-by at the side of the road. The forests that surrounded the narrow stretch of irrigated land bordering Lake Mead had long since faded from view, and they were now driving through the harsh wilderness that separated the lake from Las Vegas. There were signs on the road offering land for sale at a dollar an acre. But no takers, decided Josh: it was a brutal landscape, untouched by rain for years at a stretch, where even the toughest, hardiest of animals would struggle to survive.

  Josh took a bite of the Whopper, gobbling down the

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  food. He needed protein, carbohydrates, and sugar, and he needed them fast.

  The main battle still lay ahead. He would need whatever strength he could summon up.

  'Did you get all the stuff?' he asked Kate.

  She nodded.'A GPS locator. And a copy of London Calling by the Clash.' She hesitated, holding up the slim black machine that could locate any spot in the world from a single set of coordinates, and then a copy of the CD, with its iconic cover of Paul Simenon smashing his bass guitar against the stage of a concert hall. 'The GPS device I understand. It'll tell us where Luke is, so long as we have the right numbers to feed into it.' She held up the CD, glancing at its cover. 'And this. Well, I don't know'

  Josh grinned. 'London Calling, right?'

  'He's in London?'

  Josh shook his head. 'Three letters, that was the signal. L, B, and J.'

  Kate looked confused. 'Okay, tell me.'

  'The first three' tracks of London Calling. The title track, that's an L.'

  Kate flipped the CD over, looking down the track listing. '"Brand New Cadillac". Followed by "Jimmy Jazz".'

  'Right. L, B, and J.'

  'So where is Luke?'

  Josh reached across for the CD. He ripped off the plastic covering and pulled out the inner sleeve. 'Take the times of those three tracks, then feed the number of seconds into our GPS locator. So if the track lasts three minutes, twenty eight seconds, put in twenty-eight.' He handed the CD back to Kate. 'Whatever comes out, then that's where Luke is.'

  Her fingers worked feverishly. Josh sat patiently, chewing his way through the rest of the Whopper, then attacking the Bacon Double Cheeseburger. He took a handful of the fries and slipped them into his mouth. At his side, Kate was

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  holding the GPS device in one hand and the CD in the other. Her fingers were hitting the tiny plastic keyboard with the force of a carpenter banging a nail into a wall.

  'Swansea,' she said, her tone excited. 'He's in Swansea.'

  Josh felt a couple of fries lodge themselves in his throat. He started coughing violently. 'What's he doing there? With the bloody Taffies?'

  'What?'

  Josh looked at her expression. Blank. She's never heard of Swansea, he thought.

  'Where is it?' he asked.

  'Swansea, Arizona,' said Kate. 'About a hundred miles north-east of here. In the middle of just about nowhere.'

  'Then that's where we're going,' said Josh.

  Josh slipped the CD in the Mustang's audio system, then fired up the engine and pulled the car out into the road. The first sweeping, howling chords that opened the album boomed up through the Mustang's speakers.

  'London calling,' yelped Joe Strummer's rasping, hoarse voice as the song cranked up.

  Josh tapped his fingers against the dashboard, allowing the beat of the music to surge through his veins. Instinctively, he started to mouth the familiar words. For an apocalypse, there was no better soundtrack.

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  TWENTY-TWO

  Tuesday, June 16th. Noon.

  The road twisted up the side of the mountain, its surface pitted with holes and strewn with dust and boulders. Josh was gripping onto the wheel of the Mustang, letting it roll with the bumps. His body had taken so many knocks in the past two weeks that he could no longer locate the pain precisely: there was just a dull, insistent ache that seemed to be burning up every nerve in his body.

  It had taken three hours to drive here, longer than Josh had expected. They had stopped once at a gas station to shower and get some coffee. Then they had stopped at an all-day store to pick up some fresh supplies for the day ahead: water, matches, some tinned food and biscuits, plus as much spare petrol as they could get into a selection of jerrycans and fit onto the back seat of the Mustang.

  The route had been a long and hard one, taking Kate and Josh through the empty back roads of western Arizona. They drove up through high mountains, coloured a mixture of reds, bronzes and yellows, and twisted their way through steep valleys filled only with boulders and a few stray cacti barely managing to stay alive in the miserable soil. The heat of the morning was baking, and as Josh looked up at crystal-blue skies uninterrupted by even a whisper of cloud he could feel himself growing wary of the sunshine. They were only a few dozen miles from Death Valley, the hottest place in North America, where

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  the heat still claimed a few careless tourists every year.

  Swansea was a mining town, started by the Clara Consolidated Gold and Copper Company in 1909. It had remained inhabited until the mine finally shut down in 1924. At its peak, it had had a population of 750 people and a railway that connected it to the main Arizona transport arteries. As well as the mine, there had been a smelter, a barber's, a hotel and a sheriff. Now nothing remained. Unlike many of the Arizona ghost towns, it wasn't on any of the tourist maps: it was too new for anyone interested in the history of the Old West, and it had been home to none of the famous gunfighters of an earlier era. Year by year, it was turning back into the dust from which it had been built.

  Josh's gaze flickered up to the horizon. The ground levelled off at an altitude of around a thousand metres. There were deep gullies and crevices etched into the side of the mountain where the rain had washed off its sides, but as they climbed higher the ground became smoother, its surface covered with fine dust. 'There,' said Josh, spotting the small collection of tumbledown buildings emerging in the distance. 'That's it.'

  The road broke out onto a plateau, and suddenly widened. The layout of the town was clearer now. A main street, with a collection of ruined buildings. A flat mountain top. And just beyond that a huge ditch, hundreds of metres long and at least fifty metres deep, sitting like a giant scar on the side of the town: the familiar debris, reflected Josh, of opencast mining. ^

  He pulled the Mustang up at the side of the road. It was difficult to say where the town started or ended. The buildings broke down into splinters of wood and rubble, and whatever fences there might once have been had long since rotted away. Josh paused at the beginning of the street. At its edge was a sign, broken in two. 'Swan--'it read. 'Popi

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  'Whoever was the last man out of this place wasn't worrying about turning out the lights,' said Josh.

  Kate smiled. 'It's the last man in that we need to worry about.'

  Shafts of sunlight were shining right through the ruined structures as Jos
h started to walk down the main street. Twenty husks of buildings lined the eight-foot-wide track, but the walls were tumbling down, and weeds and cacti had started to take root in the mortar, turning it to dust. If you looked carefully, you could just make out what they might once have been - a bank, a hotel, an ironmonger's.

  There had never been anything grand about Swansea, Josh decided as his eyes scanned the buildings. It had been built quickly and cheaply. The facades showed no signs of decoration: wood planks and steel girders flung together as fast as possible.

  He picked his way carefully through the debris Uttering the street. This is just what I need, he thought. A man with no past hides out in a town with no present.

  'Can you see anything?'

  Josh noticed he was whispering, as if it was somehow wrong to raise your voice in this place. As if you might wake the dead.

  Kate shook her head. 'But he's here somewhere,' she whispered back. 'I'm sure of it.'

  Josh noticed the smell of the air. The accumulated dirt of decades had covered the place. Every broken wall and shattered slate seemed to be caked in a layer of filth. The wind had blown bricks, beams and plaster mouldings out into the streets where they had lain for years, breaking into fragments, embedding themselves in the surface of the ground. Nothing, he realised. Usually, you could smell a man. He left his scent imprinted on the air. Here there was nothing. Just the smell of decay.

  'You sure you got the coordinates right?'

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  Kate nodded. 'Swansea,' she said. 'That's how the coordinates came out. You sure you got the code right?'

  Josh nodded. 'We talked about it. That memory is quite clear. Luke's a rock kid -- he knows all the classic albums off by heart. I think he must have learned them from his mum. We agreed on a whole bunch, and the tracks would be the clues. The Beatles and The Stones, of course. And Van Morrison. Some Dylan.'

  'So where the hell is he, then?

  'Water,' said Josh.

  'We got some in the car.'

  'No,' said Josh. 'I mean, there has to be a water source somewhere. Nobody can build a town unless there's fresh water. Luke's a smart kid. He'll be hiding out by the water.'

  Kate looked at him, her eyes sparkling. 'So where is it?'

  'Easy' answered Josh. 'Look for the smelter. You can't run one of those without water.'

  He started walking towards the smelter. Swansea's main street* ran in a dead straight line with buildings on either side of it. Behind the buildings there were a few relics of what might have been residential houses. Straight ahead of them, Josh could see the mine. Its rusting hauling gear still rose high above the landscape. Next to it lay the disused conveyer belt that had taken the ore and started sorting it before depositing it in the smelter. The mine had been opencast. In this derelict country, no attempt had been made to cover up the damage after the mine had shut down. Huge pits were sunk into the side^ of the mountains, and huge piles of rubble where explosives had been used to break up thousands of tons of rock lay in massive, crumbling piles.

  A barbed-wire fence had been put up around the plant, but it had long since rusted. Josh pushed open the door and stepped inside. The machinery lay silent all around. He walked quickly towards the door of the smelter. Rust had

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  Unsettled into the hinges of the door, making it stiff. He leaned his shoulder into the door, giving it a hard shove. Once, then twice he heaved his weight against the door. The third time, the hinges cracked and the door swung open. Josh stepped inside. The smelter still had a smell of charcoal and metal that had lingered through the decades since it had last been used.

  'Luke,' shouted Josh. 'Luke.'

  His voice echoed against the tin roof.

  'Luke,' he shouted again, louder this time. 'Luke?'

  The words coiled around the derelict building, bouncing off the walls. Each time it bounced back it lost a fraction of its strength, and Josh could hear the sound gradually dimming, like the fade at the end of a record. Where the hell are you? Josh asked himself. Why aren't you answering?

  I just hope you haven't left already. You won't survive out there by yourself, not for a minute. Too many people are looking for you.

  A flashlight came on, its beam trained on Josh. He jumped, instinctively recoiling from the harsh light. Raising his forearm to his eyes to shield them, he turned around. A thin pale figure was stepping out of the shadows.

  'Is that you, man? Is that really you?' said the boy.

  Josh looked closer. The figure was obscured by the light blazing out from the torch. Josh took a step forward.'Luke?'

  The light switched off. Josh could see clearly now. A thin boy, fifteen or sixteen, with straggly blond hair, thick lips, and a complexion that was pale and waxy. His eyes were sunken and there were dark shadows across his cheeks. His Limp Bizkit T-shirt had a couple of gashes in it. And he smelled strange: an acrid mixture of sweat, fear and dirt.

  'Christ, you look terrible.'

  Luke shrugged. 'You don't look so great yourself

  Josh took another step forward. He reached out a hand, placing his palm against Luke's. The boy's hand was cold

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  and sweaty, and his fingers were trembling. Scared, realised Josh. Scared the way an animal is scared. Or a child.

  He pulled Luke closer, putting his arms around him and hugging him to his chest, the same way he might have greeted a long-lost brother. For a moment they remained silent.

  'It's okay, man, it's okay,' said Josh. 'I'm here now. It's going to be okay.'

  A tear was starting to trickle down the side of Luke's face. 'Hell, man, I've been so frightened. So fucking frightened, you wouldn't believe it.'

  'We're here now,' said Josh. 'It's going to be okay.' He took the torch and started to look around. Luke had been living here alone for two weeks. Some dried leaves had been bundled into a pile to make a bed. A solar panel had been fixed up to provide enough electricity to run a laptop, and a tiny portable satellite dish had been set up to give the computer access to the Internet. Otherwise, Luke had been entirely by himself here, speaking to no one, frightened out of his skin. No surprise that he's starting to crack, realised Josh. There are many brave grown men who wouldn't be able to take that.

  'Let's eat,' said Luke, nervously. 'We need to talk.'

  Josh looked around. Luke's ideas, like those of many teenagers, of what he needed to survive while on the run were foolish. He had a dozen two-litre bottles of Coke, several boxes of crisps, and endless packets of biscuits. But little fresh water, no fruit, no bre%d, and no cereals. Another reason he looks in bad shape, thought Josh. He's just eating sugar and starch.

  'Who's she?' said Luke, jabbing a finger towards Kate.

  'Kate,' said Josh. 'She's a doctor. She's been helping me the last couple of weeks. I've been really lucky to have her along.'

  'Are you okay, Luke?' said Kate. 'I can examine you if you want.'

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  Luke shook his head. 'I'm okay. Scared. But okay.'

  He poured out three servings of Coke into some plastic cups, and took a hefty swig of his own, downing it in one gulp. Josh could see that his hand was still shaking nervously.

  'What the fuck happened, man?' Luke said suddenly, looking accusingly towards Josh. 'You were meant to help me.'

  'I don't know,' answered Josh.

  'Hey, you were meant to get me out of here,' said Luke, sounding angrier. 'That was the deal.'

  'I don't know about that, either,' said Josh.

  Luke looked startled. Josh noticed how the fear in his eyes, which had started to abate in the last few minutes as he'd grown angry, had suddenly returned. 'You don't know much.'

  'I lost my memory,' said Josh. 'After I got shot. What happened immediately before that is a blank.'

  'Your memory? Shit!'

  'You'll have to tell me everything that happened between us, Luke,' said Josh. 'So let's all sit down. And you start at the beginning.' .

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  TWENTYTHREE

  Tuesday, June 16th. Night.

  'It started with me and Ben. Just a couple of kids, right? We hang out together at school because we're both into computers. We started out playing games, all the usual stuff. Then we did some programming, and started following some of the hacking websites. Nothing sinister. We were just testing ourselves, I reckon. Seeing what we might be able to-do.'

  Luke was sitting on the pile of leaves that he had swept together to make a bed for himself during the last two weelcs. He had a cup of Coke in one hand, a biscuit in the other. Josh was sitting next to him, his legs crossed. Kate was sitting just behind him, her hands resting on Josh's shoulders. Above them some pale shafts of light were beaming down through the cracks in the ceiling of the smelter.

  'We did some stuff like hacking into the computers at school, changing grades. We got into a bit of trouble for that. We were hacking into the phone company so that we could get our calls for free. We hacked into a few other company systems as well. Not to do any harm. We just wanted to have a look around, see what we might be able to do.'

  'Like what?' said Josh. 'Why were you doing it?'

  Luke looked up, a hint of a smile on his face. 'Why does anybody do anything? Money, right? You met my mom. Do we look rich? I mean, I love my mom, don't get me wrong, man, but she's a wacko. Right?'

  Josh smiled. 'She takes her own path through life.'

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  'I never had a dad, at least not one that I knew. We never had a proper car or a proper house, or any of that stuff. So all the time I'm thinking, what if I could make some real money. A million dollars, two million dollars, something like that. Buy a place by the beach in Jamaica, where mom could just sit around smoking weed all day. Maybe go to London, visit some of the places The Clash used to play. Like that place on the cover of their first album.'

  'The Westway?' said Josh. 'Forget it.'

  'Well, whatever, man. I just wanted to get out of Hicksville. Me and Ben, both of us, that's what we wanted.' He paused, taking another hit on his Coke. 'You get onto the hacking websites, and go into the chat rooms, and you get all these stories from guys who hacked into corporate websites. You know, you get kids who hack into the Starbucks system and start messing with the prices of latte. Or whatever. And they're, like, the company pays them a million bucks or something just to tell them what the flaw in the system was and how they could fix it. All these stories going around of kids making millions just by sitting in front of their computers.'